A success for the international scientific community

The results
presented today by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN are a step
forward of extraordinary importance for our understanding of the Universe.
The discovery of the Higgs boson is the culmination of a search that has been going on for more than four
decades in order to demonstrate the validity of the theory known as Standard Model
of particle physics. This theory fits in
the path of a great and powerful unified framework of the fundamental forces
existing in nature, and is the crowning of a journey that commenced with the unification of the Earth and planetary motions
in Newton's Universal Gravitation, and then continued
with the unification of electric and magnetic forces in Maxwell's Electromagnetism.
The Higgs boson in
the Standard Model allows us to justify the existence and dynamics
of the fundamental constituents of
matter; thanks to its discovery
we have taken a giant step in our understanding of the broad geometric principles
of Symmetry that govern the Universe dynamics.

The evidence
of the Higgs boson existence becomes the starting point of a new and
exciting adventure and presents us with some of the deepest questions
of physics. It is a quest for truth
still shrouded in the mists that surround a wide range of energy scales, from that which we
can probe with our particle accelerators, of which the LHC is the most powerful
example and pride of European technology, to that of the Planck scale
(ten trillion times higher) which is probably the extreme limit
of knowledge.

Experiments
such as ATLAS and CMS are the result of large international collaborations , which
chose CERN to perform these studies at the
frontier of knowledge and technology. The Italian contribution to these
experiments, in terms of personnel at the accelerator and direction of CERN, is
important and highly qualified ( Fabiola Gianotti ATLAS spokesperson, Guido
Tonelli CMS spokesman emeritus, Sergio Bertolucci Director of Laboratory Research)
and the contribution of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics was
decisive in the construction and implementation of key parts of the
detectors.

This
discovery is also the result of the Excellence of Italian research in this
field and the enthusiastic contribution of many young researchers throughout the
various stages of this endeavour. The
leading edge technologies used in LHC experiments have been, are and will be the starting point for constructing
innovative equipment such as the Positron Emission Tomography
(PET) and the high field magnetic resonance imaging, thus contributing
to build a better society, as strongly urged and desired by
the European Community. The other
important element of union between basic science and its applications, the
technology transfer to industry , is fully implemented
in the physics adventure at the LHC, where Italy played a major role. The
leading edge technology used in the accelerator and the experimental apparatus
required a great competitive effort by our industry which
managed to win many of the CERN contracts for the LHC and, spurred to
operate in an environment of advanced technology, significantly increased
the industrial competitiveness of our country.